Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.

Wishing, waiting, wondering – part 2

Cady was gone from the arena only because Keiko had gotten up and taken Cady to her stall to look her over.

“Any changes?” I asked.

“Not really.”

Callie fed the horses their morning hay, and Keiko and I warmed up in the house with coffee and Cathy.

Kay had already gone home to get ready for work. After we went out to feed grain Keiko took a nap in her car, and I hauled a portable corral out to the field, along with a chair and another cup of coffee.

Gainful employment

Time for some corral basic training for Goshen (no worries, he was a mowing machine) and some chitchat with Mike, Cathy’s neighbor, all the while with a sightline on Cady. Goshen was so relaxed in the pen we set him to work on Mike’s dandelions.

A quick promotion

Keeping busy was no problem. I always a long list of things to do at the barn. Tack even got cleaned!

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While my husband and I were riding in the field, Cathy was texting Keiko. Cady was squirting milk from the pressure of the contractions now.

This time Keiko brought her electric blanket The clear sky meant it was likely to get cold again that night.

Fringe benefits

Alice came out to the barn, still in her work clothes. “You haven’t posted anything on Facebook for a while, so I figured I would just come and check.”

Alice has boarded her horse Gus at Cascade Gold for seventeen years. They are a cornerstone of the barn family. Gus is nearly thirty-one now and Alice takes exceptionally good care of him.

He has some typical senior horse issues – so few teeth that his gums squeak when he eats his mush, and some creaky joints that benefit from Adequan, but the Pergolide is managing his Cushings symptoms. His winter coat is still pretty long, so Alice put a plaid flannel shirt on over her work clothes and dug in. She even had time to give Maz some grooming. He’s retired too and really likes the extra attention. Alice has seen foals born before, and she wasn’t planning on staying all night, but we appreciated the company.

Then Nadia showed up. She was leaving for Russia soon, but she is hungry for all kinds of horse knowledge, including seeing a foal born. It seemed from the progression of labor that she had a good chance that night.

“Would she feel more comfortable if we shut the lights off?” Nadia asked.

It was a fair question. Mares can postpone the birth process to some extent when they are stressed, but Cathy has not found it to be a significant factor.

“She has to give birth sometime,” Cathy said.

There was a moment of silence. That wasn’t one hundred percent technically true — but this was not the time and place to review all the things that might go wrong.

Hint: if you want the tail wrap to stay in, do not use show sheen in the weeks before.

After escalating bouts of pacing and swishing, when it appeared Cady was settling down, Keiko went to take a nap in her car. Cady stared over the fence at the parking area for a while.

I had some handiwork to keep me busy – my felt riding pad. It was still functional, but in places the shaggy nomad look had gotten out of control, so I needlefelted the loose areas. Nice and clean after a washing, it made a good lapwarmer as well. Once again the temperature was dropping.

Then both the needles snapped. So much for that.

I envisioned the pile of warm bedding in the van. Then I pictured my bed at home. If I left now, I could sleep deeply and come to the barn in the morning to take pictures, if there was a foal, and if not, I could be rested for the following night.

But there was Kay beside me, and she was staying, in spite of her residual cold, and having to work the next day. I didn’t want to be a deserter.

I shrugged off the nagging of the ticking clock.

Long-term thinking

So Kay and I talked about CJ, her young horse, who is over at the Pomeroy’s barn now after coming back from training.

His insecurities are slowly disappating, apparently. “He’s actually better under saddle than on the ground,” Kay said.

She and Keiko are both riding him. Kay has Justin, her own senior horse, to ride as well.

Kay and Justin last summer

Keeping two horses going is hard when you have a full-time job, and Kay teaches a few lessons on top of that. There are benefits — having a young horse is exciting because you can dream about their future even when progress happens by inches.

“He looks like a real horse now.” Kay said.

CJ getting ready to work with trainer Saasha Deamborosio

I know what she means. She got him as a yearling, and he is now six, going on seven. It truly does take that long for a horse to assume their mature shape – not just the skeleton, but the muscle development that makes one part flow smoothly into another, that gives strength and stability to their movements. She’s seen plenty of awkward phases, the ones you hope your young horse doesn’t get stuck in!

To people who just get on trained horses, this process may not have the same fascination as it does to me. And perhaps there are people who just take it for granted that horses will just grow up and turn into good citizens. I guess I have seen enough rescue horses to know how many ways this can go wrong.

It can be a long road, and not without its bumps, ones you definitely don’t want to speed over.

So what’s the big rush?

I was adrift in thought when Kay leaned forward and squinted through the arena fence, “Is that her water breaking?”

We stared. No, she was just peeing. Cady returned to her haypile and then to the far corner, near Aya.

When Keiko returned for a changing of the guard around eleven I realized that my feet were nearing numbness. I had pulled the van over by the barn aisle so that I could see into the arena without sitting up. I could still watch from there. I do remember seeing the back of Nadia’s head and being impressed by her dedication, so I know didn’t fall asleep immediately.

[Yes, I know this is not exactly drama-packed – but isn’t that always the way with a middle segment of a trilogy? To be continued…]

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.